The Last Theorem

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The incidents at Pearl Harbor lay in the future and the United States was still at peace when a British warship steamed into Nantucket with what was later called “the most valuable cargo ever to reach American shores.” It was not very impressive, a metal cylinder about an inch high, fitted with connections and cooling fins. It could easily be carried in one hand. Yet this small object had a strong claim to being responsible for winning the war in Europe and Asia—though it did take the atom bomb to finish the last of the Axis powers off.

That just-invented object was the cavity magnetron.

The magnetron was not in principle a new idea. For some time it had been known that a powerful magnetic field could keep electrons racing in tight circles, thus generating radio waves. However, this fact remained little more than a laboratory curiosity until it was realized that those radio waves could be used for a military purpose.

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